


Camp Cold Water

by burglebezzlement



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Camping, Case Fic, F/F, Getting Together, Ghosts, Lakes, Making Out As A Distraction, Summer, Summer Camp, Thunderstorms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-11-29 21:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11448960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: When a series of accidents at a haunted summer camp in the Adirondacks escalates, the camp’s owner asks the Ghostbusters to investigate. But the real culprit may be more difficult — and dangerous — to uncover.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Includes a couple references to background events noted in the Ghosts from Our Past tie-in book.

Erin pats the client’s hand. “It’s okay,” she says. “We’re going to believe you.”

“It’s — I didn’t know where else to go,” their client says. He’s a mid-thirties guy named Rob. “When my boyfriend met Kevin at his acting class, it seemed too good to be true.”

“That’s Kevin’s speciality,” Holtz says, from across the room. 

“Holtz.” Erin glances at her, and then turns back to the client. “Why don’t you tell us what’s going on? In your own words. No rush.”

Rob leans back, and then sits up again, uncertainly. He’s sitting in the client chair, a battered old metal nightmare with Naugahyde upholstery that Holzman dragged back from the city recycling facilities on one of her scrapping expeditions. Erin knows they need a nicer client chair, but she doesn’t have the heart to tell Holtzman.

“I bought a camp,” Rob says. “Upstate. It was for sale and I figured I could fix it up, maybe run it as a summer camp for grownups, you know? The caretaker’s still up there. The mess hall’s still in good shape, and I figured I could have spots for glamping. Rebuild a few of the cabins. Maybe make something out of it.”

“So what happened?” Abby asks.

“I’d heard the legends. I googled the camp before I bought it. I’m not stupid. But I figured every camp has a slasher legend. The real estate agent said there weren’t any murders there, and they have to tell you if there were.” Rob picks at the torn upholstery on the arm of his chair. “But not long after I bought it, the accidents started.”

* * *

“Uh-uh,” Patty says. “I’ve seen the movies. I ain’t going to an abandoned summer camp.”

“It’s not like that,” Erin says. “Come on, guys. He needs our help.”

Abby seems torn. “Cold Water?” She pulls out her phone.

“It’s the camp name,” Erin says. “It’s not in Coldwater, New York. It’s up in the Catskills. There’s three Chinese restaurants within twenty minutes.”

“Maybe,” Abby says. “Maybe.” She keeps poking at her phone. Probably checking out Yelp reviews.

Erin did some research into this, after Kevin brought them the news that they might have a new client. A new client with recurring full-torso apparitions. Of course, given that the information was filtered through Kevin, half of her research ended up being into the wrong Coldwater, but Erin’s not focusing on that.

What she’s focusing on is that they have a new client who needs help, and has a ghost with promising research possibilities. Their last few calls in the city have been for a Class I ghostly mist that barely made the PKE meter’s needle move, an infestation of mice (and not even ghost mice), and someone who claimed they felt inexplicably nauseous and then ended up having norovirus. 

“I think we should take this,” Erin says. “It’d do us good to get out of the city. It’d be like a vacation.”

Patty gives her a _look_. “Ghostbusters don’t take vacations.”

“Says who? Anyway, we’d be working.”

“I vote we go,” Holtz says. She’s been sitting on her workbench, but now she hops down, her movements loose and easy. “I’ve got that new ghost shredder I’ve been wanting to try in the field.”

Abby looks up from her phone. “Yelp says the closest Chinese place has decent wontons. Rob has to feed us, right?”

“I’ll make him put it in the contract,” Erin promises. She’s started doing that — making the owners of the locations they investigate sign a contract not to sue the Ghostbusters. Not that she expects the incident with Holtz, the containment unit, and the exterior facade of that apartment building to happen again.

But better safe than sorry.

“I’m not going,” Patty says. “Y’all go and get yourselves killed by a summer camp slasher if you want, but Patty is staying right here.”

* * *

The Ecto 3 handles well, once they’re out of the traffic and potholes and noise and exhaust of the city. As they drive north, the scenery shifts, from suburbs and towns to agricultural fields to scrubby forests to low mountains, covered in pine trees.

Erin’s driving, while Holtz tries to get Patty and Abby to play some bizarre car game she’s invented. Erin doesn’t understand the scoring at all, even though she seems to be winning.

“That’s three dogs for me,” Holtz says, as they pull into the nearest town to Camp Cold Water. “Erin, you have one dog but you got the five-point fluffy dog bonus, so you’re in the lead. Abby, you got those eight cows, but they were Holsteins, so there’s a minus-eight stereotypical cow penalty for calling them. Patty, what color did you say that bridge was?”

“I’m not playing,” Patty says. She’s sitting next to Erin, deep in a book on American summer camp lore. It took them three days to convince Patty it’d be safe to leave the city, and Erin wishes Holtz would let her read. Erin’s still wondering if Patty’s going to have them drop her off at the nearest Metro North station as soon as anything goes wrong.

“Everybody’s playing,” Holtz says. “It’s not a car game unless we all play.” She leans forward, between Patty and Erin’s seats, and Erin shivers at the feeling of Holtz’s breath against her ear.

* * *

The roads go from two-lane asphalt to single-lane dirt, and then Erin pulls the Ecto 3 up in a dirt parking lot scattered with pine needles. There’s a fresh scent in the air, something that tells Erin she’s in the wild, like the campgrounds her mom and dad used to drag her to when she was a kid. 

The Ghostbusters grab their equipment from the car and follow Rob into the main lodge. It’s built from rough-hewn logs, and inside, worn floorboards run under a ceiling held up by massive timbers. 

“It’s original,” Rob says, with pride. Someone’s obviously been cleaning and sweeping. Replacing the screens on the wide windows, which look out over cleared fields, the forest, and the lake. 

The inside’s mostly empty, but there’s a table with chairs and a bench at the far end, next to an open door into an industrial kitchen that looks abandoned. The Ghostbusters set their equipment down on the table, and Abby goes digging through the bags to find the PKE meter.

“There was another accident this morning,” Rob says. “Before you showed up.”

Abby pulls out the PKE meter. “Show us.”

They find some low levels of PKE activity in the main lodge, but Rob steers them away. “None of the accidents happened here.”

Instead, he brings them down to the lake. The shore is overgrown with weeds, but there’s a new dock, with a couple canoes pulled up beside it. A shelter built of raw, new wood protects several life jackets hanging from hooks. “One of the incidents was here,” Rob says. “I went out for a canoe ride in the evening, before the sun went down, only the bottom of the canoe just collapsed once I got out there. If I’d been any further from shore….” He trails off. “I always wear a lifejacket, but….”

Holtz leans over Abby’s shoulder to look at the PKE meter, which isn’t reading anything. “Where’s the canoe?”

“I told you,” Rob says. “It sank.”

“And you just left it?” Holtz squints out at the water. “What do you think, Erin? Go try to get a residual reading?”

Patty looks up at the sun. “If you two want to drown, that’s on you.”

“Let’s check out the rest of the incident locations,” Erin says.

Rob brings them through the woods. The pathway is springy with years of accumulated pine needles from the surrounding trees. They walk past a restored cabin and a couple tent platforms, recently repaired, before they get to a clearing.

The cabin in the center of the clearing is overgrown, its roof caved in and the walls only half-standing.

“Wow,” Abby says. “Is this what the rest of the cabins looked like before you started working on them?”

“Hardly.” Rob’s hanging back, like he doesn’t want to get near the cabin. “That roof almost killed me this morning.”

Abby looks down at the PKE meter. “No readings,” she says. “Are you sure?”

“That I nearly died? Pretty sure.” Rob trails after them as they approach the cabin. It’s similar to the others — wood beams supporting a wooden floor, with plank walls running up to open netting windows. The overhanging shingled roof has smashed down into the floor.

Erin approaches the cabin carefully, trying not to step through any of the holes in the floor. 

“No ectoplasm,” she says.

“You sure?” Patty looks doubtful. “I thought only full-torso apparitions could cause this kind of damage. And don’t they usually leave ectoplasm behind?”

“Could be a poltergeist,” Abby says. Her attention’s still focused on the PKE meter. “I’m not getting any readings.”

Erin pushes the roof. “Give me a hand with this.”

Rob stays back, but Holtz comes forward to help Erin pull back one of the fallen walls. With the wall away, they can see the roof supports.

“Look at this,” Erin says. She leans in. 

There are fresh cut-marks on the support beam.

* * *

They check out the sites of a couple more accidents, but the PKE meter stays stubbornly quiet.

When the sun's on the horizon, Abby sends Rob into town with strict instructions for the restaurant. Before he goes, he introduces the Ghostbusters to Mike, the camp’s former caretaker. “Mike’s been helping me out with the renovations,” Rob says. “He knows more about this camp than anyone does.”

Mike’s an older guy, with weathered hands and gray in his hair. He doesn’t say anything when his boss introduces the Ghostbusters, just nods his head and goes back to standing the rough wood of one of the picnic tables he’s building.

Patty tries to ask Mike about the camp’s history, but he’s more interested in his sander. “Can’t rightly say much about it,” he says, shouting over the machine’s whine. “Should ask Rob about that.”

“Rob said to ask you,” Erin says, but she lets Abby and Holtz and Patty lead her back to the main lodge.

“I don’t think this is a ghost,” Abby says, bluntly.

Holtz nods from the end of the table, where she’s packing her ghost shredder into a heavy plastic case covered with warning signs.

“But Rob said he saw an apparition,” Erin says. 

“The only apparition he saw was here in the lodge,” Patty says. “All the accidents have been in other parts of the camp.”

“So? We’re getting PKE readings here, right?”

“Barely,” Abby says. She looks down at the meter and switches it off. 

Rob gets back, laden down with heavy bags of Chinese takeout. “Dinner,” he says, putting the bags down on the table. “There’s beer in the fridge.”

Mike follows him into the lodge and sits down at one end of the table, away from the Ghostbusters’ equipment. Rob slides a takeout container down to him, and Mike nods.

“Must be one of those strong, silent types,” Holtz whispers into Erin’s ear. Erin shivers. 

Abby insists on sorting out the food orders, so Erin gets up and explores the kitchen. It’s big, loaded down with professional kitchen equipment that looks like it’s seen better days. There’s a walk-in fridge, but the drinks are kept in a normal-size refrigerator that doesn’t look like it belongs. There’s beer and soda, so Erin grabs a mix.

She’s sliding a beer down to Abby when the broth in Abby’s soup container starts to wobble. 

“What was that?” Erin sits down, but the table and the benches are shaking.

“Oh no.” Rob’s gone pale. “Not again.”

The ghost shimmers into existence in front of the window, glowing bright against the darkness outside. She wears a long white dress, fading into misty fog halfway down her knees. Her hair is brilliant white, and glows like her skin. 

She doesn’t say anything, but all the furniture in the lodge rattles. Erin grabs her chair and Abby clutches her wonton soup close before replacing the cover and picking up the PKE meter instead. The meter screams as soon as Abby hits the on switch.

Holtz jumps up and begins unpacking the prototype ghost shredder. The ghost doesn’t pay any attention. Instead, she looks at Rob and then points off into the darkness outside. She fades away just as Holtz gets her ghost shredder unpacked and powering up.

“Damn it!” Holtz slams the ghost shredder down on the table. “Abby, I told you these safety cases were a dangerous waste of time.”

“That’s what she did before the canoe sank,” Rob says. He’s shivering. Patty slides a beer over to him and he clutches at it, taking a sip before shaking his head. “I have to leave. I have to sell this place and give up. That’s what I have to do, right?”

“You have to tell us everything,” Abby says. She pats his hand and then grabs her soup. “We’re the Ghostbusters. We can fix this.”

Down at the end of the table, Mike cracks open his beer against the side of the table.


	2. Chapter 2

Before turning in for the night, the team does another full sweep of Rob’s living quarters with the PKE meter, just in case. There’s nothing.

The ghost was pointing off towards the area Rob’s been clearing for kickball and dodgeball. The lights aren’t installed yet, so it’s pitch black in that part of the camp, and they decide to check it out in the morning. 

Rob has two spare beds in his quarters, which Abby and Patty claim.

“Here you go,” Rob says, to Erin and Holtz. He hands them two sleeping bags and a couple little LED headlamps. “You remember where the first cabin was, right?”

“Is it —” Erin swallows. She’s not sure how she feels about separating from the team.

“We remember,” Holtz says. She puts the headlamp on and switches it on, and then turns to look at Erin, who squints in the light. “This will be fun, right?”

Erin regrets ever saying she liked camping. “Yeah,” she says. “Rob, have there been any disturbances at that cabin?”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Rob says.

“It’s cool.” Holtz pats the case with her ghost shredder. “If the ghosts try anything, we’ll fix your problem.”

* * *

The walk to the cabin seems longer at night, with the darkness close around them and Erin’s heartbeat jumping at every cracked twig. 

The cabin’s roughly the same as the one that collapsed. This cabin’s standing, of course, which Erin really hopes continues. There’s bunkbeds, with thin foam mattresses over wire springs and beat-up pillows at the head of each bed. There’s a rough bathroom, even, with a sink and toilet. Erin wonders about that. Original to the camp, or added by Rob for the glamping twenty-somethings he hopes will be staying at Camp Cold Water someday?

“I am beat,” Holtz says. “Flip you for the bathroom?”

“All yours.”

Holtz shrugs and grabs a plastic bag from her suitcase. She’s got the ghost shredder set up on one of the spare bunks, the case open so she can get to it faster.

While Holtz is gone, Erin unrolls the sleeping bags, one on each lower bunk, and changes into pajamas. She wasn’t assuming they’d be sharing a cabin. Or that they’d be sleeping in a cabin at all. With the sun down, the air temperature’s dropping fast.

Holtz smiles when she gets out of the bathroom. “I claimed top bunk,” she says. She grabs one of the sleeping bags and puts it on the bunk above the other sleeping bag.

Once Erin’s washed up, they switch the lights off. Erin tries to tune out the noises around them, but she’s used to the traffic flowing around the firehouse, not the quiet sounds of the forest at night. The wind sighing through the pine trees above the cabin. A rustling from below the cabin’s foundations that must be mice. The sound of —

The bunk bed shakes and Holtz’s face appears below the frame of the upper bunk. Erin can barely see her. “Are you okay down there?”

“I’m fine.” Erin knows she’s probably not convincing. She fakes a yawn. “Totally fine.”

Holtz stays still for a moment, probably trying to study Erin’s face in the darkness, and then the bunks shake again while she lies back down.

“So you did a lot of camping as a kid?” she asks.

“Some,” Erin says. “It’s Michigan. It’s popular there.” She snuggles further into her sleeping bag. It’s finally warming up. 

“What about you?” Erin asks, when she realizes that she has no idea. The Ghostbusters spend holidays with Patty’s family, sometimes, and she and Abby grew up together, but the closest thing Holtz seems to have to a family is her old faculty advisor, who stops by the firehouse sometimes to tell funny stories about how one of her experiments almost blew up a city block. If she weren’t Holtz’s advisor, Erin would consider the woman a public menace.

“My family’s not interesting.”

Erin stares up into the darkness. “I’m interested,” she says.

Holtz is quiet, and Erin’s wondering if she’s fallen asleep when she finally answers. 

“They didn’t really like someone like me,” Holtz says, her voice quiet in the cabin. “I mean, they were fine, they just… they didn’t get me. They wanted me to like boys and makeup and sports.” She goes quiet for a moment. “They didn’t think I was possessed or anything.”

“Possessed?”

“They’re kind of religious.” Holtz turns over and the bunk moves a bit as she does. “I don’t know. We don’t really talk. What about your family?”

“They didn’t believe me about the ghost,” Erin said. “And they used to pay a couple kids to be my friends.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Erin says. She doesn’t usually talk about it, but what Holtz told her made her want to open up. “Abby was the first friend I had who they didn’t have to pay to hang out with me.”

Holtz is quiet, digesting this. Erin wonders if Abby already told her.

“It’s cool,” Holtz says. “I’m not going to send your parents a bill or anything.”

Erin laughs. “When I met Abby, she offered to be my friend for half-price,” she says.

“So camping,” Holtz says. “You’ve been before. What else do I need to know?”

* * *

When they wake up the next morning, the sun has already risen, but the air’s chilly. Erin’s nose is the only thing poking out of her sleeping bag, and it’s freezing cold. 

Erin takes a deep breath and jumps out of the sleeping bag, running for the suitcases piled on one of the other beds. She’s got a sweater in there, she knows it.

“Erin?” Holtz sits up, still in her sleeping bag. She looks like B-movie a mummy in its sarcophagus suddenly coming to life. 

“Stay there,” Erin says. “Do you want a sweater?”

“I might have one of those,” Holtz says. She stays still for a moment, looking out the window, and then unwraps herself from the sleeping bag. Holtz doesn’t look cold, and Erin’s envious. Her feet are freezing on the wooden boards of the floor until she finds her socks.

There’s warm showers and breakfast waiting up by the lodge. Once Erin’s showered and dressed, the day looks better. It’s even warming up. Outside the lodge windows, the sun sparkles off the lake like nothing spooky ever happened here.

After breakfast, Rob brings the Ghostbusters over to the kickball and dodgeball field to look around. It’s just a flat, grassy field, with small brush encroaching from the sides of the forest. Nothing sinister about it.

It’s as close as they can figure to where the ghost pointed. Abby’s watching the PKE meter, but nothing’s happening. 

They don’t find anything suspicious at the kickball field, so Patty takes off in the Ecto 3 to go work her way through the newspaper archives at the local public library. Erin figures Patty just wants to be out of the camp before the slashing starts, but they need more information, and Patty’s the best of the Ghostbusters when it comes to that type of research. What Patty can’t dig out of a microfiche collection probably doesn’t deserve to be remembered. 

Abby insists on raising the canoe that sank, which takes several hours and gets all three of them soaking wet. And once they get the canoe back to shore, it doesn’t tell them anything. There’s a hole knocked in the bottom of the boat, but the PKE meter stays dead.

“I don’t like this,” Abby says, looking off across the lake.

If Patty were here, she’d try to give Abby a ten-minute timeout for using inappropriately foreshadowing language. Erin just shrugs.

“It doesn’t add up.” Abby kicks the side of the canoe and then starts walking back to the lodge.

Erin follows, while Holtz takes a few more measurements of the canoe.

“What are you thinking?” Erin asks.

“The apparition,” Abby says. “What if it’s not connected to the sabotage? It’s pointing toward the areas of the sabotage, but we have no evidence a ghost is involved in those incidents. No ectoplasm residue. No PKE readings. And it’s not like a human couldn’t saw through some support beams, or drill holes in the bottom of a boat.”

“Maybe it’s a warning,” Erin says.

“That’s what I’m thinking.” Abby bites her lip. “I think we need to find out if Rob has any enemies. The human kind.”

* * *

It’s just Abby, Erin, and Holtz at lunch. Rob told them to take advantage of the kitchen, and Holtz insists on making something she calls a Holtzwich. She has Erin fire up the huge industrial toaster and feed slices of bread onto the conveyor while she makes what she calls her special sauce.

Erin loses track of the ingredients going into the special sauce, but the sandwiches end up being weirdly good — something about the toasted bread and the crunch of the lettuce against the creamy spice of Holtz’s special sauce on the smoked turkey and tomatoes. 

After lunch, Abby decides to borrow the camp’s ancient Jeep to go into town to try to track Rob down. Erin and Holtz stay behind, to watch for the ghost in the lodge.

“Who would even want this dump?” Holtz asks, leaning back in her chair. She’s about to tip over.

“I think it’s kind of cute,” Erin says. “The pine trees are nice. And the lake’s really pretty.”

Holtz makes a face. “Only one ghost. Boring.”

“Yeah, but it’s a Class III full-torso apparition,” Erin argues. “I’d take that over six non-apparating poltergeists.”

“Yeah, but poltergeists have style. Remember that one at the Second Avenue subway line construction site who kept levitating the construction borer?” Holtz’s eyes go dreamy for a moment, remembering the scene, and then she shakes her head. “No, what I mean is, seriously, who would want this place? It’s a dump. It went out of business because kids don’t like camping. So if someone’s trying to kill Rob — why?”

“I don’t think they’re trying to kill him,” Erin says, slowly. 

Something’s been bugging her about the sabotage. Sure, a cabin roof coming down on someone’s head might hurt them, but it’s not something you could guarantee — and what if it came down on Mike’s head instead? And there are better ways of killing someone than putting a leak in their canoe. Rob’s got lifejackets next to the canoe beach, and he’s a strong swimmer.

It’s more like someone’s trying to scare Rob. Trying to get him to leave the camp alone.

“What’s Mike’s deal?” Erin asks.

“Like, is he single?” Holtz waggles her eyebrows.

“What? No.” Erin bites her lower lip. Holtz was joking, right? Because Erin’s pretty sure she was joking, but… it’s not like Erin’s been _open_ about her crush, but she was thinking Holtz — but then they work together and it’s not like she has any idea what Holtz’s deal is. Maybe Holtz has eight girlfriends on a string and calls them up whenever she wants. It’s not like Erin would know. For sure.

Holtz leans a little further back in her chair. “So what did you mean?”

“What?” Erin avoids Holtz’s eyes. “Right. Mike. How did he get involved with the camp?”

“He lives here,” Holtz says. “Rob says he’s got a little cabin down at the end of one of the trails. He was the caretaker here back when this was a summer camp.”

“And Rob just kept him on?” Erin shakes her head. “Mike knows where all the tools are. He knows where Rob’s going to be working.”

Holtz lets the front legs of her chair bang back onto the floor. “Let’s go check him out.”

* * *

The whine of a chainsaw tells them Mike’s working in the woods along the lake, so Erin and Holtz can head to his cabin without suspicion. Erin sends Abby a text before they leave.

Mike’s cabin is a ways down the path. There’s a dirt road leading out, where Mike’s truck is parked. It’s old but well-maintained, with a handmade sign on the side advertising Mike’s Handyman Repair Service.

“That explains how Mike was surviving out here,” Erin mutters.

The cabin’s built from logs, stockade-style. The front door’s locked, and Erin puts her hand on Holtz’s when Holtz reaches for the lock.

“I could pick that,” Holtz says, while Erin tries to ignore the tingles in her hand.

“Not yet.” Erin takes her hand back and tries to focus. Tries to think.

They walk around the cabin, checking out the rooms through the windows. There’s a main room, with a kitchen and a couch, and a small bedroom and bathroom. Nothing of interest, but then Erin’s not sure what she was expecting. Outside, a propane tank sits on a little wooden platform to provide gas for the stove, and there’s a generator in its own shelter, even though power lines run down to the cabin from the dirt road.

“Snug,” Erin says.

There’s a storage shed out front, and they open the door carefully and inspect the tools inside. Mike has drills and saws, but Erin has no way of knowing what he’s been using them for. There’s nothing that might suggest a motive for Mike to try to drive Rob away from the camp.

They’re closing the door to the storage shed when Erin notices that the sound of chainsawing has stopped. 

“Hang on,” she whispers into Holtz’s ear.

Holtz listens, too, and then takes Erin’s hand to pull her around to the side of the shed. “He’s coming,” she says, low. “Follow my lead.”

_Follow you where?_ Erin wants to ask, but then she hears Mike’s footsteps on the pathway.

Holtz pulls Erin in, her hands gentle on Erin’s shoulders, making eye contact, and Erin feels herself freeze like a rabbit. This is everything she’s secretly dreamed about, at night, knowing Holtz is one room over in the firehouse but too scared to make a move.

Erin doesn’t understand Holtz’s plan, doesn’t understand why Holtz is suddenly touching her like this, until Holtz pulls her into a kiss, abandoned and sloppy, moving her hands along Erin’s back. “Oh, _Erin_ ,” Holtz moans, loud enough to be heard from the pathway.

Holtz pulls back for a moment. “Sell it,” she whispers, and then leans back in.


	3. Chapter 3

_I’m kissing Holtz. I’m actually kissing Holtz._

Erin’s mind is spinning in circles, but her body finally catches on and she pulls Holtz closer. Kissing her with abandon, like there’s nowhere else and nobody else. Only them, here, in this moment.

Until someone coughs.

“Oh gosh,” Holtz says, in a bright, high-pitched voice that sounds nothing like the Holtz Erin knows. “Oh gosh, this is so embarrassing.”

“Something I can do for you ladies?” Mike asks, his voice gruff.

Erin pulls her shirt back down. “Um.”

“We lost track of where we were,” Holtz says. Her voice has dropped to her usual register, but she still doesn’t sound like herself. “We wanted to come talk to you, but we didn’t know where you were.”

“Could’ve followed the sound of the chainsaw,” Mike says, but he turns away from them, like he’s no longer wondering why they’re there. Apparently in Mike’s world, people like to make out beside his toolshed. “What did you want to ask?”

Holtz elbows Erin in the side. 

Erin clears her throat. She can still feel Holtz’s lips on hers. It’s distracting. She’s not good at these kinds of undercover operations.

“Uh… does Rob have any enemies?”

“Can’t say as he does,” Mike says, but he doesn’t look suspicious, just confused. “Why? I thought you young ladies were tracking a ghost.”

“Sometimes it’s more complicated,” Erin says, and gives Holtz an imploring look.

“We’re looking into some alternative theories,” Holtz says. “Was anyone else trying to buy the camp?”

“Not that I recall,” Rob says. He swings open the door to the toolshed and pulls out a rag to start cleaning off the chainsaw. “It was on the market for a few months before Rob came to look the place over.”

His hands are weathered and grizzled, oil in the cracks in his skin, but his fingers are gentle while he inspects the chain and wipes down the saw. “It gets in your blood,” he says, quietly. “This place, these woods — it’s a special place.” He finishes inspecting the chain and then puts the chainsaw back in an empty space on one of the shelves. 

“I was glad when Rob bought this place,” he says, turning back to Erin and Holtz. He wipes the oil from his hands with the rag and puts it into a red metal bucket. “I wouldn’t want to move, but more than that — this place has a soul. You wouldn’t want to fill it up with vacation condos.”

“That’s weirdly specific,” Holtz says.

“Any reason you use that as an example?” Erin asks.

“Some real estate developer,” Mike says. “Came out of the woodwork a few months back and asked Rob to sell. He said no, but now….” He shakes his head. “Can’t rightly say.”

* * *

Patty’s pulling up into the camp’s gravel parking lot in the Ecto 3 when Erin and Holtz get back to the main lodge.

Erin’s mind is still whirling. Holtz only kissed her to keep Mike from realizing that they were checking him out. _That’s all it was_ , she tells herself, and tries to ignore the way her skin glows with Holtz’s touch, the way she can’t turn off the awareness of Holtz standing next to her.

_Keeping Mike from figuring it out wasn’t worth this._

Erin doesn’t think Mike’s guilty — not now. There was a genuine fondness in the way he talked about Rob, and based on what Rob’s said, Erin can’t see him asking Mike to leave. Driving Rob off would only convince Rob to sell the camp, and Erin’s guessing a part-time handyman couldn’t afford to buy it himself. It makes no sense. 

Patty leans in. “Erin? You okay, girl?”

“What?” 

“Erin’s fine,” Holtz says, impatiently. “What did you find at the library?”

“Not out here,” Patty says, looking suspiciously at the surrounding trees. “Six out of ten slasher movie deaths happen when the characters’ dumb asses hang out in the woods.”

“I think you’re making that statistic up,” Holtz says, cheerfully, as they follow Patty back to the main lodge. “Ten out of ten slasher movie deaths happen because someone got slashed.”

“Really?” Erin’s mind is still whirling. “But what about all the other types of deaths?”

“Metaphorically slashed,” Holtz says, waving her hands in a conciliatory motion. 

When they get to the main table, Patty spreads out a bunch of photocopies of local newspaper articles.

“The town put their paper on microfiche,” she says. “The ghost’s been written about before.” She pulls out an article with the headline COLD WATER GHOST SAVED CHILD, REPORTS CAMP COUNSELOR. “At least once, she appeared when a kid had wandered off. They found him by following where she pointed.”

Erin leans in to look at the article. There’s a child’s drawing included in a sidebar. The reproduction quality’s low, but Erin can make it out if she squints. 

“It doesn’t look like the kid found the ghost scary,” she says. They get a lot of fan mail, and usually the kids give the ghosts they’re scared of fangs, or add dripping blood, or at least give them a frown. This drawing just shows a lady with long hair, hovering over the floor. 

“She’s smiling,” Holtz says.

Patty shuffles through her papers and pulls out a couple pages photocopied from a book. “There’s legends about this lake,” she says. “Going way back, before European settlements — something about a protective spirit.”

“So what makes a protective spirit decide to start killing people?” Erin asks.

“Maybe she didn’t,” Holtz says. She meets Erin’s eyes and Erin shivers, involuntarily.

“It’s a slasher,” Patty says. “A low-down, human-type slasher.”

“Or just someone who wants to drive Rob away from the camp,” Erin says. 

Holtz snaps her fingers. “The real estate developer.”

“Really?” Patty looks dubious.

“None of the accidents were deadly,” Erin says. “If we’re right, they’re just trying to convince Rob that the camp’s too hot to handle. Get him to sell. If he dies, they have to wait for the property to go through probate and hope his heirs are willing to sell.”

Holtz gets up and starts packing her prototype ghost shredder back into its protective case. “What?” she says, when she sees Patty and Erin looking at her. “We’re not about to shred her if she’s a good ghost.”

“Maybe,” Erin says. 

Rob and Abby still aren’t back. Erin starts looking through more of the copies Patty brought back. There’s more stories, over the years, of the ghost drawing attention to an unsafe situation, alerting the camp counselors of danger or an oncoming storm.

* * *

Abby gets back an hour or so later, just before dinner. She’s driving the camp’s broken-down Jeep, which backfires noisily before she can turn off the ignition.

“Hey!” Abby waves. “Come help me carry the food.”

Erin lets Abby load her down with two huge paper bags filled with cartons of noodles and stir-fry. “Did you buy the entire restaurant?”

“Work expense.” Abby grins. “My insights don’t come cheap.”

“Patty got some info,” Erin says, while she follows Abby up the path. “The ghost may be a protective spirit.”

“No shit?” Abby looks curious. “That’d be interesting. Does it ever communicate?”

“Sometimes.” Erin lets Holtz open the lodge doors for them, and then dumps the food bags on one of the wide tables before following Abby into the kitchen. “Mostly about danger. Kind of like Lassie.”

“So if it’s showing up now — ” Abby’s got a speculative look in her eye while she rifles through a drawer for spoons. “What do you figure?”

“My money’s on the real estate developer,” Holtz says, from the countertop across the kitchen. Erin jumps. She didn’t see Holtz jump up there.

“Developer?” Abby asks.

“Yeah, some guy who wants to buy this place to build vacation condos,” Erin says. “Mike told us about him.”

Erin grabs a few plates and follows the others out to the main room. “Did you find Mike?” she asks.

Abby frowns. “No. I didn’t see his car, either.”

Over the lake, clouds are gathering, top-heavy and dark. They wait for a bit, but Abby says she refuses to let perfectly good wontons go cold, so they put a few cartons of food in the enormous refrigerator, in case Rob and Mike come in later, and dig in.

Rob finally comes in after they’ve finished.

“Rob!” Erin jumps up. “You okay?”

He doesn’t look like he’s okay. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Yeah,” Holtz says. “Did the evil real estate developer try to kill you again?” Erin winces — she’d planned on downplaying that theory.

Rob starts. “What evil real estate developer?”

“Our current leading suspect for the sabotage,” Abby says.

“Sabotage? I thought it was a ghost.”

“It’s a multiple-actor situation going on here,” Patty says helpfully. “Where were you all day, anyway?”

“I had to go to the real estate office,” Rob says. “I was thinking about selling the camp, but when you guys said it really was haunted — I thought about it, but I couldn’t let someone else take that on, not in good conscience. I went to tell the guy who made the offer that the camp’s not on the market.”

Erin stares at him. If they’re right — if the prospective purchaser who’s been making offers has been trying to discourage Rob — then Rob saying the camp’s not for sale means no more minor accidents. The buyer has a motive now. 

A motive to kill. 

She’s just opened her mouth to say as much when there’s a huge clap of thunder overhead, and the lights suddenly go out, leaving the inside of the lodge in shades of dark gray. 

When the ghost appears, she’s glowing white-blue, like she’s lit from inside. Her hair streams over her shoulders as she looks down at them from in front of the windows.

She’s beautiful, Erin thinks, as lightning flashes behind the ghost and thunder booms overhead. 

The apparition points toward the kickball field before vanishing from view.

“It’s a warning,” Patty says. “Rob, that real estate developer might be trying to kill you. We have to call the cops.”

Abby holds up her cell phone. “No reception,” she says. “The lightning strike must have knocked out the tower.”

“I told y’all,” Patty says. “I told you, we do not go to a creepy-ass summer camp in the creepy-ass woods without getting slashered. But did you listen? No.”

“We’re not going to get slashered,” Erin says, with a confidence she’s not feeling. “Rob, do you have a landline?”

“Never got it turned on,” Rob says. “With cell phones, it didn’t seem that important.”

“It’s time to get out of here,” Patty says. “Come on. We’ll all fit in the Ecto.”

Outside, the rain’s just started, but thunder booms overhead as they race for the car. It’s a squeeze, three people in the backseat, but the car starts, and soon they’re bouncing down the dirt road out of the camp.

“I can’t believe it came to this,” Rob says, forlornly, from the back seat.

There’s a slurping sound from the other side of the front seat, and Erin turns to see Abby holding her wonton soup. 

“What?” Abby asks. “It’d be a waste, leaving perfectly good soup behind.”

They’re almost at the edge of the property when Erin sees a glowing, blue light out of the corner of her eye. Not lightning. It’s too faint, and it lasts too long. 

She brakes, stopping the car to look back, but there’s nothing there. 

“What?” Holtz asks. She leans forward. “Everything okay?”

Erin turns back. “I thought I saw —” She shakes her head. “Must be imagining things.”

Abby gasps, and they all turn around just in time to see a tree slowly fall down across the road in front of them, just where they would have been if Erin had kept driving. There’s a wheezing sound, and the crash and crackle of leaves hitting the ground.

“I think it was the ghost,” Erin says. “She saved our lives.”

“Saved our lives so we can get slashered,” Patty says from the backseat.

Rob’s shivering so hard, Erin can see him shake in the rear-view mirror. “We can’t go anywhere until Mike gets over here with his chainsaw to take care of that tree.”

“Nobody’s getting slashered,” Holtz says. She grins at Erin. “We’re taking the fight to him.”


	4. Chapter 4

Back at the main lodge, there’s a confusion of flashlights, lanterns, and rain jackets before the five of them come up with a plan. Abby and Patty head off down the path to Mike’s house. Mike’s got a separate driveway, one that’s not blocked by a fallen tree. Once Abby and Patty get there, they should be able to take the truck out to go get help.

“Are you sure about this?” Erin asks Holtz. They’re outside, under the lodge’s overhanging roof, rummaging through an old camp equipment locker, looking for anything they can use against a human. The ghost shredder, while effective against ghosts, is useless in this situation. 

Erin sees Holtz tuck something into her pocket, but she’s distracted by finding several bows. She starts rummaging around the base of the closet to look for arrows.

The rain’s pounding down, turning the grassy field into mud. Holtz grins in the flash of the lightning. “I wish more ghosts were this helpful,” she says. 

Erin shakes her head and hands Holtz one of the bows. There’s hardly any arrows left from Camp Cold Water’s old archery program, but Erin feels better having something. Anything. 

Holtz claps a hand on Erin’s shoulder, and Erin’s warmed by it. Even though she has no reason to be. Even though — 

“Let’s go,” Holtz says, bow held loosely in front of her, and Erin nods and follows.

Rob and Erin lag behind Holtz, hidden by the curtains of wind-driven rain as they approach the kickball field. Lightning flashes, lighting the gloom with brief glimpses of the stormy lake, its contours hazy behind the rain. 

There’s movement at the tree line, and Erin grabs the other two and motions for them to hold still. She tries to watch, in the gloom and the flashes of lightning, and then there’s a burst of motion as something crashes out of the bushes at the edge of the forest. 

Erin tries to notch an arrow, but only manages to drop it on her foot before she sees the source of the noise — an enormous buck, who pauses at the edge of the kickball diamond before springing off into the woods. 

She giggles nervously. “Guess that’s not our bad guy,” she says.

Holtz pushes her glasses up. “Not unless he’s a were-deer.” Her eyes go wide. “Erin, do you think —”

“I think we need to find this guy,” Erin says.

They move slower now, skirting the edge of the field and keeping their eyes open. Erin holds onto the bow. If she can’t shoot it, maybe she can beat the developer over the head with it.

They’re nearly at the far edge when it happens: a breath of air, and then an arrow’s vibrating in a tree just next to Holtz.

“Take cover!” Erin yells, pulling Holtz down behind the bushes with her. Rob stands, frozen, and Holtz ducks out to pull him back into the scanty cover of the woods. 

_So that’s why the arrows were gone,_ Erin thinks grimly.

“Someone’s really trying to kill me,” Rob says. In the next flash of lightning, Erin sees that he looks shocked. “A human being is actually trying to kill me.”

“Ghosts mostly aren’t about the murdering stuff,” Holtz says. “With maybe a few exceptions.”

Erin thinks frantically. They’re pinned down in the woods, and judging by the way that arrow hit the tree, this guy knows what he’s doing. Unlike them. Erin might be able to figure out how to make the arrow go forward, but it’s not going to be a weapon. And that’s ignoring the fact that they’ve only got a few arrows between them. And can she really use a bow? Send an arrow into a living human, even one who just tried to kill them? She’s not sure.

“It’s okay,” Holtz says, “I have a plan,” but then Rob steps out of the cover of the trees.

“You’re here for me,” he yells. “This is my property. This is my fight.”

There’s a thud from the tree next to Erin and Holtz as an arrow narrowly misses its target.

“I’m not going to sell to you,” Rob says, and there’s a boom of thunder from above him, just a second behind the lightning.

Erin feels the ghost before she sees her. There’s a pressure in her ears, like going up into the mountains, and then a light streaming into a woman-shaped space in front of Rob. 

The ghost doesn’t shimmer this time. She flares into existence, lighting up the field, the damp trees, the Ghostbusters, Rob — and the man with a bow standing just down the field from him.

“Here we go,” Holtz says, and she’s running from cover with Erin trying to keep low behind her. 

The man with the bow lets another arrow fly, but it halts in front of the ghost and falls harmlessly to the grass.

The ghost doesn’t speak — not exactly. But Erin’s ears muffle. She can’t quite hear the rain or the thunder, and she has a feeling of protection. She knows, without words, that the ghost won’t let harm befall this land or any who protect it.

There’s a whip crack, muffled, and then the man stumbles and drops his bow. 

The ghost flares again, light flooding the field, and then disappears. Erin’s left nearly blind in the absence of light, but she can just make out Holtz, stumbling ahead, pulling on a —

“Holtz, is that a whip?” Erin yells, over the sound of the thunder.

“Damn straight.” Holtz inspects the man and pulls him to his feet. His arms are held to his side by the braided leather. “Well, maybe half-whip, half-lasso. I’ve been experimenting with some new ghost-fighting equipment. The ghost-fighting version is surprisingly good practice for the real thing.”

“You mean it’s over?” Rob’s voice is shaking.

“Yeah,” Holtz says, without looking up from the man wrapped in the coils of the whip. “I think it’s over, don’t you?” She tugs on the guy’s hair and looks disappointed when his face doesn’t come off, Scooby Doo-style. “Got anything to say for yourself?”

The guy glares up at them. “I want a lawyer,” he says.

“Come on.” Erin lets herself touch Holtz’s shoulder, which is wet with rainwater and tense from holding the whip. “Let’s get this villain back to the lodge.”

* * *

They’ve just finished tying the developer down in a chair back at the lodge when a man wearing a flip-down safety mask and carrying a chainsaw throws the doors wide.

Erin’s heart leaps into her throat, and she throws her arm out in front of Holtz, trying to shield her from the chainsaw-wielding confederate of —

Holtz looks at her like she’s lost the plot.

“It’s okay,” Holtz says. “It’s just Mike.”

The terrifying apparition raises his visor and — yeah, it’s Mike.

“Hear you had a tree across the road,” Mike says, over the sound of the storm. “Something about getting the sheriff’s deputies into the camp?”

“Are Patty and Abby okay?” Erin asks.

“Oh, they’re fine,” Mike says. “They went into town to get help.” He frowns. “I just hope they don’t spill soup in my truck.”

* * *

It’s a long night of questions from the sheriff’s deputies. Abby and Patty are triumphant, returning in Mike’s truck, the interior of which is soup-free. “Soup’s got electrolytes,” Abby says, when Erin asks her about it. “It’s basically an energy drink.”

Once the sheriff’s deputies have hauled the developer away for questioning, they make Rob and the Ghostbusters walk them to all the sabotage sites. The thunderstorm has settled down into a sulky, fitful rain, and Erin’s soaked by the time she’s helped them take photographs and collect what feels like half of the collapsed cabin for evidence. 

By the time law enforcement leaves, it’s too late to drive home, even if the Ghostbusters weren’t all exhausted. 

“Of course you should stay here another night,” Rob says. They’re all gathered around the table at the lodge, eating leftover Chinese food. Normally Erin would worry about safe holding times and food safety, but right now, she’s starving.

When they’re all finally stuffed full of cold noodles and mouth-burningly hot egg rolls that Abby insisted on reheating in the microwave, Patty and Abby assert their claim on Rob’s shower. 

Erin follows Holtz back to their cabin. The woods are damp and cold. The trees seem to press up against the path, against the light of Erin’s flashlight.

It’s a relief to step inside their cabin. The sound of the rain is a soft blur against the cabin’s sloped roof. Holtz switches on one of the lamps, which gives the place a cozy glow against the darkness outside.

“Exciting day,” she says. She’s not meeting Erin’s eyes.

“Yeah.” Erin stands, awkwardly, and then gathers up her stuff from her bunk and heads into the bathroom. There’s no warm water — no shower to take even if the cabin did have warm water. But after brushing her teeth and washing her face and arms, drying herself off with a towel, she feels a little more human.

She changes into warm, clean sweatpants and a Ghostbosters t-shirt. It’s a misprint from the run Patty ordered when she decided they needed more community marketing and outreach, and told the rest of them that if people were going to interrupt their research by dropping by the station to say hi, there might as well be merch to sell them. 

Erin studies herself in the mirror and suddenly wonders if she should be dressing — well — _sexy_. There’s a little tweed suit that her old faculty advisor always glared at her for wearing, and Erin never burned it like Abby told her to. Maybe Holtz —

_No_ , Erin tells herself. Holtz knows her. Knows the real Erin. If Erin in sweatpants isn’t right, then Erin isn’t right.

She hangs by the mirror a bit longer, and then finally makes herself go back.

In the cabin’s main room, Holtz is checking the ghost-fighting equipment. Even though they haven’t used anything. Even though the Lady of the Lake just saved all their asses, and there’s no way Erin would ever consider experimenting or using a containment field on her, much less Holtz’s prototype ghost shredder.

Erin can’t look at Holtz. She knows she should just talk about it. Just ask a question. How hard can it be? _Hey, Holtz, we kissed, let’s talk about it._

It’s the hardest thing in the world. She stands by the window, looking out into the darkness and brushing her hair, over and over again.

“We should probably talk,” Holtz says, and Erin almost drops the brush in surprise.

“Yeah,” she says. “Look, Holtz —”

She can’t think how to end that sentence.

“I’m sorry I kissed you,” Holtz says. “It felt like the right thing to do in the moment. Now that we know Mike’s not an evil were-deer, I realize that it was inappropriate behavior —” 

“What?” Erin meets Holtz’s eyes. “No, that’s not why —” 

“—and I’m sorry,” Holtz says. “I didn’t want to make things awkward.”

Erin bites her lip. Is Holtz apologizing because she didn’t want to kiss Erin? Because it really was just a terrible call, and Holtz never meant to start something? Because they work together, and this is going to make things really complicated? _Maybe less complicated than jumping every time Holtz brushes past you,_ some part of Erin says, but she’s not sure.

“Also, I was cheating at Dog Poker in the car on the drive up,” Holtz says. “I was totally letting you win.”

“You were the only one playing.”

“Yeah?” Holtz looks away. “Maybe I just wanted you to win.”

“Holtz….” Erin takes a deep breath. Maybe this is a terrible idea. She’s still going to try. “Can I kiss you again?”

While Erin watches, Holtz’s face goes from worry, to confusion, to something that might be hope. “Really?”

“If you want to,” Erin says, awkwardly, like it doesn’t matter. Even though it matters more than anything in the world.

Holtz lets out a breath. She steps up next to Erin, and Erin’s heart is beating double-time as she leans down to kiss Holtz. For real, this time.

Erin might have imagined kissing Holtz a time (or two) (or a hundred) but the reality is nothing like she imagined. Holtz kisses like she’s working on a machine to save the city, like it’s the last thing she’ll ever do. Like Erin is the most important thing in her world.

Her breath hitches, and she lets her lips open. Holtz’s tongue slowly brushing her lips, so slowly — Holtz biting Erin’s lower lip and pushing in, closer, always closer. 

Erin keeps her lips on Holtz’s as her hands brush down her arms, her back — up and into Holtz’s hair, still damp from the rain. Erin starts gently brushing through, pulling out bobby pins and an elastic and —

She pulls back. “Holtz, why are you holding up your hair with a piece of old handset cable?”

“Not important.” Holtz’s eyes are dark, the pupils blown in the light from the bedside lamp. She brushes her hands through her hair, pulling out another elastic and several pieces of metal that might have come from a cheap toaster. 

Holtz leans back in, pushing Erin down onto the bunk bed, and Erin runs her hands through Holtz’s hair and lets herself drink it all in, Holtz’s smell and Holtz’s everything, right here in this tiny cabin in the woods.

It’s weird.

It’s good.

It is both _super-weird and super-good_ , and as Erin pulls Holtz closer, she’s pretty sure she never wants to let go.


	5. Epilogue

Erin picks up the Ghostbusters' mail and starts sorting through. The usual haul of restaurant menus, which she puts into the takeout menu drawer. (Abby always says she’s going to find something better, even if she keeps going back to Benny’s unreliable wonton supply in the end.) There’s a couple haphazardly-wrapped books Patty must have ordered online. An invitation to a physics symposium — two copies, one for her, one for Abby. Another chemical supply catalogue for Holtz, which Erin is tempted to hide after what happened the last time they let Holtz order whatever she wanted.

The brochure’s at the very bottom, and Erin hangs onto it after sorting the rest of the mail.

CAMP COLD WATER, it says, on the front, in a hipster-y font floating over a photograph of the lake, sparkling in the sunshine.

Erin heads into the main room they all share and drops everyone’s mail on their desks. Patty immediately starts ripping into her book packages.

She sits down on the couch, and Holtz pops up from behind to lean over her shoulder. Erin leans into her, letter their cheeks touch. Holtz’s skin is warm against hers.

“Anything good?”

Erin waves the brochure. “Looks like Rob’s camp is open.”

“Fascinating,” Holtz says. She kisses Erin’s neck and then leaps over the couch to sit down next to her. Her eyes narrow as Erin flips through the pictures again. The kickball field, with a game in progress. The main lodge. There’s even a photo of the cabin they stayed in, and Erin gets a sharp feeling of nostalgia. 

“He doesn’t mention the Lady of the Lake,” Holtz says.

“I guess he doesn’t want to draw attention to her,” Erin says.

“What?” Holtz seems to be incensed on the Lady’s behalf. “But she’s the best part! He should be marketing that place as Camp Ghost!”

“She only shows up when someone’s about to die,” Erin points out. “Maybe not the best publicity.”

Holtz scrunches her nose up. “I mean, I guess.”

There’s a Post-It inside the brochure with a scrawled note. _Come up any time!_ Erin reads, in Rob’s handwriting. _Ghostbusters always stay free._

“What do you think?” Erin asks. 

“Yeah,” Holtz says, a grin spreading across her face. “Why not?” She leans in and kisses Erin. It still makes Erin’s toes tingle, every time. 

Erin smiles against Holtz’s lips. “Who says Ghostbusters don’t take vacations?”


End file.
